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Sapphire HD 6770 FleX Edition Review

Conclusion:

The allure of the FleX series of video cards from Sapphire is the ability to use this solution to provide a SLS (Single Large Surface) solution with a minimum of cost to get to the promised land. With Sapphire's FleX series of cards, you have the ability to use low-cost DVI monitors without the added cost of active adapters. Sapphire includes everything needed to run a three-monitor SLS display in one package (minus the monitors, of course). If you want to move up to four monitors, however, you will need to pony up for a DisplayPort monitor or an active adapter. While talking about Eyefinity, the HD 6770 can game with a three-monitor Eyefinity setup depending on the resolution and settings used. Using the medium settings I used for the standard resolutions, there were several of the games that were playable, including HAWX 2 (45FPS), BFBC2 (35FPS), and Just Cause 2 (39FPS). Mafia II was close at 30FPS. By turning down the visual quality a little bit more, it's certainly a reality. We all know the HD 6770 is not going to be this intense gaming beast, but it does have the ability to run just about any game out at the right resolution and settings. By adding a second HD 6770 FleX Edition card, you can pretty much eliminate some of the performance bottlenecks and have a pretty sweet low-cost CrossFireX/Eyefinity setup.

In the standard gaming tests, the HD 6770 delivered results indicative of its architecture. Overclocking the HD 6770 lead to measurable performance increases across the board for not a lot of time commitment. The HD 6770 FleX was able to push out a 11%+ improvement on the core clock to 945MHz and a 13%+ bump on the GDDR5 memory clock to 1374MHz - both substantial and worthy of the time commitment. Once you get past the rebadging of the HD 5770 piece, you understand that the HD 6770 fills out the AMD HD 6XXX series product stack with enhancements, such as HDMI 1.4a and UVD3. The price point on the Sapphire HD 6770 FleX is a little higher than the vanilla models, but it comes with additional capabilities and is currently right on par with the HD 5770, so you get added features for the same cost. The FleX Edition cards fill a niche market and do a fine job of it, from gaming to enhancing your productivity at work. Sapphire has given us a product that allows us to have our cake and eat it to.